Chicago City Wire

U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) has deported an illegal alien with ties to terrorist groups in West Africa 17 years after being convicted in the U.S. of visa fraud and making false statements. 

Prince Solomon Knox, a Sierra Leone native, is also on record lying about this affiliation with armed terrorist groups, according to a March 5 statement by ICE.

“Foreign nationals, from any country, cannot be allowed to abuse the visa system and migrate to the U.S. fraudulently,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Chicago Field Office Director Sam Olson said in a statement. “This is an example of someone not only attempting to escape responsibility in their home country, but also depriving those in the global community of the opportunity to seek desperately needed relief.”

ICE said that Knox entered the U.S. through O’Hare in 2004 and came to their attention in 2006 through an investigation involving allegations of fraud by “ineligible combatants or imposter refugees to participate in the refugee resettlement program.”

“The investigation revealed witnesses who provided testimony about involvement with multiple combatant groups in Western Africa, including the Revolutionary United Front, a group that made extensive use of child soldiers while committing acts such as amputating the hands, arms, and legs of tens of thousands of Sierra Leoneans using machetes,” the ICE statement said.

Chicago is a top priority for President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, whose immigration enforcement efforts have met resistance from both Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.

A month ago, the Trump Administration sued Illinois and top state officials to force them to turn over illegals serving time to ICE rather than releasing them into the general population.

Both Illinois and Chicago have sanctuary laws that prohibit the police from cooperating with immigration officials.

In one recent instance, concerns were raised about these policies potentially playing a part in the murder of a 63-year-old Norwood Park man.

An Ecuadorian national charged in the Jan. 26 murder of George Levin would likely have been in federal custody at the time of the murder had these protections not been in place including the Welcoming City Ordinance – Chicago's sanctuary law.

Two weeks before the murder, Geiderwuin Bello Morales, 21, was arrested on charges of assaulting a victim under the age of 13; he reportedly attempted to lure her and another girl into a car.

Morales was released a day after his arrest, police reports indicate.

Chicago’s sanctuary law prohibited police from notifying ICE agents that Morales was in the country illegally.

His arrest “certainly should have been grounds for detention and deportation,” a Chicago Police Department source told Chicago City Wire.

“Of course, it’s impossible to say if that would have prevented the murder, but he would not have been part of it,” the source, who asked not to be identified, said.

Last week Mayor Johnson appeared before the U.S. House Oversight committee where reports say his “heavily scripted" responses saw him through but not without some flak.

South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace questioned him about illegals jailed for violent crimes being released back into the public.

“Mace cut off Johnson as he tried to launch into a nuanced answer,” Second City Cop reported.

“This is why you have a 6% approval rating: Because you suck at answering questions,” she said, joining a line of Republicans who took hard shots at the freshman mayor.